NATO DMs Mull New Bases Along Ukraine Frontier

Throwing military assets at Eastern Europe on an ad hoc basis is remarkably fashionable these days. An upcoming meeting of NATO defense ministers in early June is expected to be the first major chance officials have to discuss a more permanent scheme.

With Poland in particular clamoring for permanent NATO deployments, the odds are good that the alliance will be strongly considering setting up bases along the frontier with Ukraine, using tensions between Ukraine and Russia as a pretext for a buildup in the region.

Officials say there’s no real chance of getting into a war with Russia though, so the Russia-Ukraine situation is really just an excuse to set up bases. NATO official Jamie Shea was quick to remind everyone that Ukraine isn’t a member of NATO to begin with, and NATO wouldn’t be required to attack Russia on their behalf.

For Eastern European member nations, the NATO bases are a chance to make their militaries more internationally relevant, and to likely get some increased aid from the big spenders in the west.

Some officials are being pretty straightforward about this being a political football for them, saying Eastern Europe’s NATO members willingly went along with the calamitous US occupation of Afghanistan, and suggesting the US owes them a debt of gratitude that can only be paid with more ill-conceived deployments.

The problem isn't Ukraine as such. The problem is the (not unreasonable) perception that Putin wants to re-constitute the territory of the Soviet Union, which would entail invading and annexing NATO members Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. That's why the deployment is in that area. I doubt if the US is doing any of this for Europe. But withoput NATO, America's role as Israel's protector is undermined. As always, the elephant in the room is Israel.

NATO is also a way for the former Polish/Lithuanian empire to try to build itself up to reconquer Ukraine. Poland's training of the Right Sector fascists was part of that.

"In 1653 the greater portion of the [Ukrainian] population rebelled against dominantly Polish Catholic rule and in January 1654 an assembly of the people (rada) voted at Pereyaslav to turn to Moscow, effectively joining the southeastern portion of the Polish-Lithuanian empire east of the Dnieper River to Russia." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Ukraine

Same things happening today, just with the USA now as the terrorist overlord.